'We could see the rockets in the sky being intercepted by Israel's air defence system'

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Transcript
00:00I was in Safed this afternoon. I'm back in Jerusalem now. Safed is about 12
00:07kilometers from the Lebanese border. It's a town of the surrounding area which is
00:11very vulnerable to rocket attack from Hezbollah because there are some army
00:16bases on the outskirts of the town and we experienced what the residents there
00:20have got used to in the last few weeks. An air raid siren on two occasions. The
00:26air raid siren went off as we were filming an interview and we all ran to a
00:30bomb shelter, stayed there for about 10 minutes, came out again 20 minutes later
00:34another air raid siren went off and back we went to the bomb shelter. We could see
00:39the rockets in the sky and we could see them being intercepted by Israel's air
00:43defense system, the Iron Dome. Now of course people in Safed, some of them do
00:48have bomb shelters either in their homes or nearby in the streets. Others don't
00:53though. I was speaking to some locals in the streets. One man said that he lives
00:57in an apartment building and he just goes to the safest room in his
01:01apartment. Another woman said that she works in a shop and during the day she
01:05just hides under the table in her shop. So under the till where she does all the
01:10work, she just ducks under there. So while we were able to get to an air raid
01:13shelter because we were near one where we were filming the interview, that's not
01:16the case for everyone in the town. And while Israel's Iron Dome defense system
01:21does intercept most of the rockets on Friday night, not long after Israel
01:28launched that attack on the Beirut suburb and killed Hassan Nasrallah, the
01:32leader of Hezbollah. A Hezbollah rocket did fall into the town of Safed. It hit
01:38someone's house. No one was home at the time and so no one was injured. But we
01:42visited the location and could see that there was considerable damage there. Now
01:46there are continued looming fears of a possible ground offensive in Lebanon if
01:51it hasn't begun already. Tell us more about what Israel's next moves could be.
01:59This question as to whether there'll be a ground offensive, whether Israel will
02:03actually physically move troops into Lebanon on the ground, has been a
02:08question that we've been asking for the last few days. Earlier on in the week we
02:13heard from the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, saying that they had prepped their
02:18troops, that they were in combat position, they were moving into the right
02:22place. But we haven't had confirmation from the IDF that any troops have
02:27actually crossed over the border. When we asked the IDF for confirmation on that
02:32earlier today, we were told, when we're able to tell you, we will tell you. Right
02:37now there's nothing to say. So we are waiting to hear confirmation from the
02:41IDF. We could see a scenario like we did with Gaza when Israel launched its
02:47ground offensive in Gaza last year following the October 7th attacks of
02:51Hamas into southern Israel, or the Israeli army went in short bursts at
02:55first on the ground into Gaza before going in a full-out, full-throttle
03:00campaign. So we could see that again at the Lebanese border, but we're waiting to
03:04find out. There's still a question mark over whether a ground offensive will
03:07actually be launched by Israel in the coming hours or days.

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